A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  It was six weeks since the prince had returned, just in time to avert a complete collapse of the realm, six weeks since Umpily had seen that unthinkable vision in the preflecting pool… and lied about it.

  The great backlog was shrinking slowly, and Ylo now reported that nothing truly urgent remained. The onrush of new matters left little time for catch-up, but the pile was dwindling. Umpily had nightmares when he thought what would have happened without that remarkable young lecher and his brainwave of using Praetorians as scriveners. Of course the unfortunate victims had come close to mutiny—there was even a rumor of an attempted suicide—but the prince had insisted. And the motivation was superb. They were said to be working all day and half the night in their haste to clear up the work and be released from the humiliation. Ylo had already let one go, just to spur the others on. Civilian clerks would have made a life’s work of it.

  Eventually there would be only the centurion himself left—and Ylo’s sandal unkissed! That was a marvelous rumor, but Umpily just could not think of a way to verify it. In fact, he wasn’t sure who could have started it, except maybe Ylo himself.

  “Charter for the Polity of Gurp,” the centurion said with schooled impassivity.

  Shandie did not bother to look at that one. Doubtless someone had paid well for it, although a few more crowns might have bought them a better name for their city.

  “Another, Grandsire!”

  “No! Tired. It’s ’nough.” The skull-like face on the pillow did not even open its eyes, but it clenched its gums stubbornly.

  Shandie frowned and glanced at the ornate dwarvish clock on the mantel. “We’ll take a break and do some more later. A quarter of an hour, gentlemen?”

  The Praetorians rose and stalked for the door, the centurion trailing an empty hamper, the two guardsmen clutching full ones. Shandie rose and stretched and then wandered over to the coffeepot. The others rose also and went to join him.

  Umpily could certainly use something to brighten up his wits. Shandie had a luncheon meeting scheduled with the Ilranian commissioners. If there was one thing calculated to drive a chief of protocol out of his mind, it was elves. Nordland, now, dealt with the Impire through a single ambassador. If he could not speak for individual thanes, at least he would say so. But elves! A dozen of them would twitter like fledglings in a dozen different directions and you never knew which one to listen to, although there would usually be one there with enough authority to negotiate seriously, if you could only figure out which. Even if you knew what their absurd rigmarole titles meant, you never knew whether they represented the real distribution of power. A fair rule of thumb was that the one in the most subdued clothing was the senior and the brightest dressed the least important, but if they knew you knew that, they would certainly switch the order. And their thought processes would madden the Gods. Umpily’s mouth watered at the thought of elvish cuisine. The portions were always too small, though. Jotnar, now, ate little except fish, usually boiled tasteless, but they did know how to heap a platter…

  The marshal was clutching papers in both hands. “These are all right, Highness. These I recommend you reconsider.”

  Shandie smiled at him over the lip of a steaming cup. “I gave you only two choices, you old rascal.”

  “Chuck them, then!” Ithy attempted to smile back. He was a sick man. His face was swollen and hideously discolored by some recent dentistry and must be very painful. He wore civilian clothes, which was just as well. He would look like a turtle in a breastplate. Ithy had been trying to retire for years. Shandie would grant him his release as soon as things were settled.

  As soon as things were settled—that phrase cropped up a lot these days. What it meant was when Emshandar dies.

  The old wreck became hysterically incoherent if anyone suggested a regency. Shandie could make formal application, of course, and the Senate and Assembly would appoint him in less time than it took a clerk to dip a quill, but Shandie absolutely refused to do so. Evidently he couldn’t bring himself to submit the old man to that last humiliation. Sentiment was a very poor basis for government, but his grandfather had been father to him and half a mother as well.

  And—as even Umpily would admit—for most of fifty years Emshandar had been a fine imperor. Not great, but better than most. In the six weeks since Shandie’s return, he had rarely left his bed.

  But they could cope. They could run the world like this for a while yet. It wouldn’t be long now, until things were settled.

  Umpily thought they could cope. Shandie thought they could cope. Acopulo wasn’t so sure. Yesterday he’d been pointing out that the caliph was raising his scimitar again in Zark, stronger than ever, the dwarves were being even more impossible than usual, and the goblins threatening. Even the fauns of Sysanasso were starting to cause trouble and they’d been quiet for a century. The harvest had failed in the east. A severe earthquake had shaken Ambel. Not one but two comets burned in the northern sky every night, and everyone knew that comets foretold the death of imperors. Even the least superstitious were counting the days until the end of the millennium.

  The Impire, the scholar said, was shaking on its foundations. He had given Umpily a very shrewd inspection as he said it, almost as if he knew what Umpily had seen in the preflecting pool. Acopulo didn’t believe that Umpily had seen nothing, no matter how much he insisted. He himself didn’t even think about it. A dwarf! It was unthinkable. The pool had been malfunctioning, or the whole thing had been a hoax.

  Shandie had been touching his toes and flexing his arms. He hated sitting still and he was having to do a lot of that now. Suddenly he asked, “Marshal? Do you ever hear from Warlock Olybino?”

  The old soldier started and instinctively glanced toward the bed and the unmoving figure within it. He found no guidance there. “No, Highness. Not for months.”

  “Since Nefer Moor?”

  “Nothing!” Ithy shook his head somberly. “Has his Majesty?”

  “Not a word from any of them.” Shandie’s dark eyes flashed to Umpily, who shrugged, helpless.

  Usually Hub ran a rumor or two about the wardens’ doings—a miracle cure here, or a seduction there. Once in a while one of the Four would turn up at a ball or meddle in a political affair. They were secretive, but they were present, like shadows on a wall. Now they just seemed to have vanished, and even Umpily could offer Shandie nothing.

  Acopulo thought it was a bad sign. He said it meant they were badly divided and didn’t trust one another.

  Shandie seemed to have become lost in thought, until Umpily realized he was gazing at some sort of plaque hanging on the far wall. Then, with a sense of shock, he recognized what the prince was studying: a shield and sword. He had not known that this was where they were kept! They were battered and ugly. In better times, before this sleeping chamber had become a secretariat, those two bronze antiquities must have seemed a strangely discordant element amid the luxury and elegance. Yet they were the most sacred relics of the Impire, for they had belonged to the great Emine II.

  Their purpose was to summon the wardens. Was Shandie tempted to try? Had he not yet scraped up the courage, or had he already tried and been refused? Would the Four condescend to appear for him, when he wasn’t imperor yet? Reluctantly Umpily decided his memoirs would not contain the answers to those questions.

  He poured himself another cup of coffee, thinking morosely of trilling elves and the dwarf he had seen in the pool…

  “Where’s that signifer scallywag of yours?” the marshal inquired, breaking the quiet. “Thought he ran all this for you?”

  Now that was an impudent question, although the rough old soldier would not mean it to be. Apart from the matter of a regency, the imperor was reasonably lucid—unless Ylo was mentioned. Then he raved. To bring Ylo into the room drove the old man into screaming hysterics. Obviously that nagging, clouded mind was still capable of admitting guilt. In a way, that was comforting. It would be one of the major revelations in Umpily’s posthumous memoir
s and would likely lead to a re-evaluation of the Yllipo Conspiracy and Emshandar’s handling of it.

  “Ylo’s taking a day off,” Shandie said. “He hasn’t had a break since we got back, so the Powers know he’s earned it. He’s gone riding.”

  Umpily choked. The prince glared at him and that only made him worse.

  What the signifer had said was that he wanted to try out a young filly he had his eye on.

  Shandie didn’t find the matter amusing. His eyes seemed to turn darker, his voice sharpened. “He’s a keen horseman, my Lord. He already has two mares in the stable at Oak House. He’s got a good eye for horseflesh.”

  “Oh, quite, sir! I don’t deny it.” Umpily could feel his face going red now, or perhaps purple. Sourpuss Sir Acopulo was pouting blackly.

  Old white-eyebrowed Ithy frowned, knowing he had lost the drift of the conversation.

  “Seems a very personable fellow. Remarkable career. The legion voted him a day’s pay. That doesn’t happen often!” He paused, scowling at Umpily. “Didn’t know he was a horseman, too. Good-looking chap. Popular with the ladies, is he?”

  Umpily found just enough breath to say, “He’s the most eligible stal… I mean bachelor in the —“ and then Acopulo’s pompous disapproval made him explode in a fit of giggles, like a silly kid.

  The prince smiled thinly. “Ylo has a reputation as a ladies’ man, Marshal. The old roue’s jealous.”

  “Don’t blame him!” Ithy said. “So am I.”

  Shandie swung around to Umpily. “Seriously, my Lord, is Ylo getting that sort of a reputation around town?”

  Umpily pulled himself together, avoiding Acopulo’s eye. “He already has… already has gotten… that sort of reputation, sir. I know of several mothers who have forbidden their daughters to go near him. Of course that gives him a wonderful air of mystery.”

  Acopulo sniffed meanly. “You’ve been keeping count?”

  The chief of protocol threw up his plump hands in horror. “That would be a full-time job all by itself!”

  The little man laughed and Ithy chortled.

  Of course Umpily was keeping count! So far he knew of four, and two probables. Not at all bad for six weeks’ work!

  Imperially unamused, Shandie bent to fill another coffee cup, then took it over to the bed to see if he could rouse his grandfather and get a little more work out of him.

  Shandie himself might even be a little jealous of Ylo. The signifer could at least take most evenings off, whereas Shandie had had almost no private time to spend with his wife and daughter since his return. Umpily’s sources among the Oak House domestics reported that the child still refused to recognize her father. They whispered that Princess Eshiala hated formal affairs so much that she was likely to be physically ill before a major function. They even hinted that she had not been nearly so pleased to see her husband as she had pretended. How odd that a superb motivator of men, which Shandie undoubtedly was, should be so totally blind to women!

  This would be a difficult period of adjustment for her, of course. But soon things would be settled…

  Hopefully.

  Soon Shandie should sit on the Opal Throne and the Eshiala girl would be impress.

  Hopefully.

  Umpily had never been a superstitious man, but now he was almost convinced of the dread prophecies associated with the end of the millennium. What had changed his mind, what nobody but he knew about, was the image he had seen in the preflecting pool. That was a nightmare that had haunted him for six weeks now. They wouldn’t believe him if he told them. It was incomprehensible—a dwarf sitting on the Opal Throne? He tried not to think about it.

  3

  Farther north, but still within the confines of the palace compound, Princess Eshiala was being entertained by her daughter in the gardens of Oak House. Maya was almost two now and trying to be a problem, although she rarely succeeded for long. Black-eyed and black-haired like her parents, she trotted tirelessly around, clutching a soldier doll not much smaller than herself. When she abandoned it, her mother would pick it up. Then she would demand it back again.

  The doll was named Leegie. At times Maya would call her father Leegie, when he was in uniform. Maya had not yet accepted the view that fathers were necessary or even desirable, which was hardly surprising, considering how little time Shandie was able to find for his family.

  That was a deprivation Eshiala did not mind very much. They were almost never alone, so their relationship remained purely formal. Indeed, when they did find themselves alone together, they were usually at a loss for something to talk about—he disliked discussing business during leisure hours, naturally. Every second or third night he would come to her bedroom, but they did not talk then. When he had done what he needed, he would usually return to his own room to sleep. She submitted without complaint because it was her duty, but she still could not believe that any woman could actually enjoy it. She was not even certain that Shandie did. They did not discuss it.

  As a child, she had dreamed of living in a cottage a little grander than her parents’, on the outskirts of a small town like Thumble. She had assumed she would eventually have a husband who left at dawn and returned at dusk. In the evenings they would sit and talk of family, or entertain friends; but no one had friends at court and the entertainment was all formal, balls and dinners. Back in Thumble, she would have had children and a servant, perhaps a horse and chaise if she had been fortunate in her marriage. She would have loved her husband dearly and been loved in return.

  Why, why, why had she settled for all this instead?

  To make her father a marquis and her sister a duchess?

  No. Because the prince imperial had wanted her, and her duty had been to serve. As she did, and would, loyally.

  She hated Oak House and its hundreds of servants. She was totally unable to run such an establishment, although nobody cared about that but her. Soon she would be official mistress of the Opal Palace itself, and nobody could run that—it had its own government department and an annual budget that would support three legions. So Prince Emthoro had told her.

  Playing in the gardens with Maya was the nearest to bliss she ever came. The goslings had no desire to join her. She could pretend that she was the only woman in the world, that the two of them were the only people. The guards were far away and the gardeners kept out of sight. She knew she was visible to dozens of spying faces behind the dozens of windows, but she could forget about them.

  Shandie had been back for six weeks and she thought she was with child again. In a few more days she would know for certain. She prayed that she was, for pregnancy would release her from the looming torture of playing impress at the state funeral and coronation and gala balls. It would also free her from the night thing, too, for a while.

  Maya vanished around the end of a hedge into the rose garden; Eshiala followed—and stopped. Surprise was quickly followed by annoyance, then panic. There was a man there. He was seated on a bench and had not seen her. He was engrossed in doing something with a large silver bowl.

  She moved to snatch up Maya and leave, but Maya had almost reached the intruder before seeing him. She stopped to stare and let Leegie slip to the grass. Eshiala moved forward to recover both.

  “Ylo!” Maya said, trotting forward.

  So it was, and Maya had done very well to recognize him before her mother did. Eshiala had never seen the signifer out of uniform before. He was wearing a well-tailored riding outfit that might have just come out of the box. If anything, he was even more dashing than usual.

  He smiled at Maya with no indication of surprise. “Hello, there. Princess!” Then he turned his smile on Eshiala. “Your servant, ma’am.”

  He did not rise. That annoyed her. She did hate the eternal formalities of court life, but he was not to know that. It was mere good manners for a man to stand when greeting a lady. She might be a sham princess, but she had been brought up to appreciate genteel behavior.

  “Good morning, Signifer.”<
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  “Ylo,” Maya confirmed. She clutched the edge of the bowl on his lap and stood on tiptoe to see into it. “What doing, Ylo?”

  “Making a surprise. You want to help? Here!” And without even asking permission, the soldier lifted the child up to stand on the bench beside him.

  Eshiala was nonplussed. She knew the signifer, for he ate at the prince’s table and had his own suite of rooms in Oak House. They saw each other almost every day. He was cool and formal and never addressed her unless she spoke to him first, which was just about never. He was much too good-looking. Shandie had warned her that he was a libertine and asked her to drop a warning to her maids of honor. She had done so with a very embarrassing blush.

  “Join us. Gorgeous,” he said, smiling.

  Not only much too good-looking, he was also extremely impertinent! Before she could frame an adequately crushing reply, he lifted a rose from a pile of roses on the bench beside him and began stripping the petals into the bowl. The bowl was already half full of petals, red, white, yellow, pink.

  “What you doing?” Maya demanded again.

  “You want to help? Here…” Ylo inspected one of the flowers. “No prickles!” He gave the flower to Maya, showing how to pull off a petal and drop it in the bowl. Maya grabbed a fistful of petals and tugged. The signifer gleamed eyes and teeth in another brief smile at Eshiala, then returned to his own rose.

  Apparently forgotten, Eshiala stood and… and dithered. She could certainly snatch up her daughter and leave, but Maya would yell the sky down.

  She would not go and sit on the bench. She stayed where she was. “Signifer, what exactly are you doing?”

  This time the smile went on longer and was more calculated. “That’s a secret just at the moment. You mean you’ve never seen a man doing this?”

  “You’re making perfume?” A great pile of stripped stalks lay at his feet. He must have been at work for an hour or more.